The Stone of Secrets Read online

  “Vuradech! It is almost done,” one of the workers called out, cutting short Vuradech’s admiration of the scene that surrounded them.

  Vuradech examined the structure that was so fervently built as a defense contrivance. As he did, he was reminded of the dire situation that his people had found themselves in the past decade. At first the Angles, against previous agreements, crossed the borders of the lands and harassed a few Pictish settlements only once in the year. They sought to claim Pictish lands but have failed almost every time.

  Almost.

  The Angles have become bolder in the past ten years. They no longer harass the settlements seeking cattle, or raid to claim little sections of land. Their pompous kings seek to conquer the entire seven Pictish kingdoms and this was becoming more of a reality each year. The Angle warriors raided three times in the year now unannounced. Their warriors were stern and quick, always leaving death and ruin in their wake. They plundered as much as they could before opposition could arrive. It was a belligerent act of war the Picts could no longer meet with silence.

  Something was already being done.

  Vuradech stared at the nearly completed broch and saw Hadrian, Fidach’s master builder approaching him. The shorter man wiped his hands on his faded wool shawl and gave a tired smile. The entire building team had been laying stone for weeks, and Vuradech suspected how fatiguing it was for most of them. But it had to be done. The broch had to be finished before another unexpected Angle attack.

  If there wasn’t a counter attack waiting for the Angles next time, it might well be an invasion of the entire seven kingdoms.

  “Beautiful sight, isn’t it?” Hadrian declared, stepping beside Vuradech.

  Vuradech glanced at him and noticed that his moustache had grown an extra finger width in the past few weeks. His black beard had become grey from dust and sand. He scratched the surface of his chin as he spoke and inhaled heavily after he finished, confirming Vuradech’s suspicion that the labor was taking its toll on the dedicated builder.

  Hadrian’s gaze was fixed on the broch as the rest of the men continued to work. He clasped his palms together, displaying a typical artist’s excitement after admiring his own work. In fact, Vuradech didn’t share Hadrian’s excitement about the structure of the broch. He only needed the pile of stones to perform the function that it was built for.

  “Will it be ready before midday tomorrow?” Vuradech asked Hadrian.

  Hadrian wasn’t listening. His fingers held the tip of his moustache as he stared at the broch. For a moment, Vuradech watched as his eyes danced in their sockets, probably throbbing with the fascination of an idea. Finally, Hadrian clenched his teeth together excitedly and raised his finger.

  “Yes, just perfect Vuradech! Just on course with my calculation! The hollow-walled structure fascinates me just as if I didn’t design it myself!”

  Vuradech decided to oblige the man. He stared at the round wall of stones and noticed the devout way each stone had been carefully interlocked with the others. The walls were thick, strongly woven and round, and were as high as three men.

  “I will give it a name after the final brick is laid,” Hadrian muttered, “a name that will describe the enthralling way that the lintel over the wooden door was constructed. The spiral staircase too! The insides of the ground floor alone could contain fifty men....”

  Vuradech smiled as Hadrian kept on describing in detail the result of his imagination. The broch was indeed a marvelous sight – perhaps not as astonishing as Hadrian construed in his mind. Vuradech had been there three days ago when the men began to build the staircase. From outside, the broch simply looked like a tall brick round-house, but woven inside were two perfectly carved floors. Another wall was built inside the broch, with the spiral staircase taking up the space between both walls and connecting the galleries. The staircase seemed to be linking stone slabs that tied the outer wall to the inner one.

  “You know, I am thinking of a roof...Vuradech?”

  Hadrian seemed to notice that Vuradech had not been listening to any of his words. Vuradech smiled down at him and politely nodded, asking him to continue. Time with Hadrian had taught him that builders could be quite sensitive and extremely egotistic at the same time.

  Hadrian grimaced, but didn’t say anything about Vuradech’s inattentiveness. His gaze went back to the broch and he pointed at the perfectly-hewed top. The men had finished with it and were getting ready to wrap up for the day.

  “You mentioned that this broch was to scout on incoming invaders, did you not?” Hadrian muttered.

  Finally. “Yes.” Vuradech quickly replied. He needed to know when the walls would be ready for its purpose.

  Hadrian nodded and hummed as he began to think. He held his pointed moustache between his fingers as was his habit.

  “Yes, a roof would definitely come in handy for unfavorable weather.” He finally whispered. “Yes, that is it – a conical timber-framed roof! The men will get working on that first light!”

  Vuradech was unable to interrupt or stop the excited man from leaping from his side and rushing over to his men. Hadrian’s feet were light on the ground as he moved very fast. Dust puffed from his hair as he tilted to the side to avoid broken bricks that had been abandoned on the floor.

  Vuradech was about to brace himself to summon Hadrian back when Hadrian suddenly turned to glare at him. A knowing smile flitted across his old face.

  “By the way, Vuradech,” he called out, “everything would be done in another fortnight or two. We would all be glad then aye?”

  That said, Hadrian’s hands went to his waist and he clumsily shook his entire body. He groaned as a few of his muscles strained with the exercise.

  “I would call it the old broch,” Hadrian shouted as he continued to walk towards the men. “It will remind me of the old man with an imagination as fascinating as its outcome!”

  Vuradech glanced at the builders that had so keenly worked in the past weeks. They were made up of men like him, who had wives and children and needed the assurance that there was a way to protect them. The Angles might be intending to kill everything that stood between them and the Pictish lands, but they wouldn’t succeed. At least not when he was in charge of Fidach.

  Other villages in the Seven Kingdoms were also building similar brochs. Soon there would be nothing unexpected about the Angle’s attack. The next time there was an attack on Pictish lands, the Angles would be returning home with blood and death instead of livestock... if they went back at all.

  Sighing, Vuradech watched the sun as it finally disappeared behind the hills, taking another day with it. As darkness began to envelope the blue sky, the only thing Vuradech could think of was Galem.

  With the Seven Kingdoms on the brink of war, the future suddenly seemed very bleak to Vuradech.

  Chapter Five

  Aberdeen

  August 2015, 2:05 am

  Emmett Burke’s eyes fluttered open as his cell phone rang. He glanced at the small clock beside his bed and wondered why anyone would be calling him in the middle of the night.

  Besides, he had only been able to go to sleep just an hour ago. His work in Scotland buried him in paperwork. For two days now, all he did – mostly in the night – was read the history of various individuals and their possible connections to a secret sect.

  He finally flipped the phone open and slowly placed it to his ear.

  “Burke,” he breathed into the phone.

  “Switch to encrypted mode,” came the response.

  Emmett was alert immediately. He quickly input the necessary code on his phone and was silent until he heard the beep.

  “Secured,” he finally said.

  After a very short silence, Emmett’s caller continued, “The woman, she made a bold statement. She’s on every news channel in the western world.”

  “Yes,” Emmett muttered, recalling the painful memory of Skye McAlister, “I was there.”

  There was another short silence. “She�
��s going to cause problems for herself. They’ll think she knows something and might come for her.”

  Emmett knew Skye McAlister’s rather sudden press statement might make her a target soon.

  “It’s time we got closer. This could get out of hand in a hurry.”

  “Already on it,” Emmett replied.

  “I knew you would be. Be careful.”

  The line went dead.

  Dropping his phone on the bed, Emmett buried his face in his palm and sighed. From the first time that he saw Skye McAlister he knew the woman would be trouble. It wasn’t even twenty-four hours and she had already confirmed his fear. She just had to open her mouth.

  Central Police Station, Aberdeen

  August 2015, 10:17 am

  There seems to be some secrets beneath the ruin that the authorities are desperately trying to hide. If not, with the credentials of my team, we should have been able to excavate the area without any objection. They swooped in today and shut down our activities. It isn’t about any artifact, it’s purely political. It begs the question if they are afraid we might unravel something which they don’t want the world to see.

  Skye remembered her own words as she entered Aberdeen Central Police Station with a triumphant smirk. She was there to meet with the local chief, and he seemed to be in a lot of trouble as she entered.

  The entire police station buzzed with the paparazzi. When Skye stepped into the room the media turned to her immediately. The press had come to get a statement from the chief. He fretted in front of them and kept adjusting his tie. When he turned to her, Skye gave a rather confident smile and requested to see him.

  Her statement the previous day was a tactical move. It worked as intended. The entire world was focused on this little police station. Skye smiled when she thought how easy it was to manipulate the media, to make them see a controversy where there was none. Raising suspicions of a cover up got the job done. Now it was up to Skye to help the chief see that he had no choice but to authorize her team to continue the dig.

  That was exactly her demand when she met with the chief in his office. The reporters outside the door were stewing. The closed-door meeting drove them crazy.

  “Quite an accusation that you made yesterday, Miss McAlister,” the chief muttered as Skye closed the door behind her.

  “It wasn’t an accusation, Mr. Hertford,” Skye told him. “We had everything in place before we touched that land. Surrounding the ruin with yellow tape may not seem secretive to you, but the rest of the world may think differently.”

  The chief looked at her as if she was raving mad. He said nothing but his expression revealed his mild anger. He didn’t like losing. But even more he hated controversy infecting his department. He silently stared at her. Skye stared back, as if daring him to argue.

  “Whatever you’re doing out there is beyond my jurisdiction,” he finally said still staring her down. Skye opened her mouth to argue, but the chief raised his hand and continued. “However, I can see to it that the Historical Society stays out of your way. They will not disturb your work on the ruin, once I get the restrictions lifted.”

  “When will that happen?” Skye asked. She wasn’t going to leave with an empty promise.

  “Miss McAlister,” Mr. Hertford bit back a groan, “I believe I just said I will see to it that your request is done. Does it matter the minutes or hours?”

  It does, Skye wanted to say. But she stood instead and smiled down at the chief.

  “We would like to resume excavation tomorrow please,” she demanded as if she didn’t just hear the chief’s tone.

  Skye left the office without another word or even a glance back at the chief. She heard a low snort behind her but she didn’t care. She would be issuing another statement to the press the next day if she wasn’t given what she wanted.

  She pushed her way through the press outside the chief’s office. She told them she had nothing to say, but a flood of questions pounded her anyway. Skye stopped and turned. “Maybe you didn’t hear me,” she said sternly as they pushed their microphones in her face. “I said I have nothing to say. That means I have nothing to say.” She turned and walked out, leaving the disappointed reporters with nothing to do but wait for the chief.

  Mert, Lindsay and the twins were waiting in the SUV.

  “Well how did it go?” Lindsay asked as Skye stepped into the car.

  Skye hadn’t wanted her team to accompany her to the station, but she knew she couldn’t keep them away. Since the confrontation with Henry Hertford, she was becoming a little bit protective of them. She wondered what else the government had dug up on them. She wasn’t going to lead all four of them to the police, especially with all the cameras.

  “Professor, can we resume the dig?” Mert added.

  Skye wasn’t aware that she had started the car and hadn’t even responded to Lindsay’s question. Mert was glancing sideways at her with so much expectation. It was almost impossible not to give in to the crazy thought that had suddenly come alive in her head.

  “Yes,” Skye said with a smile. “In fact, we are going back to the ruins right now.”

  Lindsay and Mert glanced at each other as if they had just won the lottery. As Skye reversed the car and drove slowly along the street, she thought about the Marnoch Stone again and remembered the feeling of running her hand over such an ancient engraving. It was like touching history.

  Mr. Henry Hertford can keep trying to lift the restrictions all he wanted; yellow tape wasn’t going to stop her team from proceeding with their research.

  Not today.

  10:28 am

  Chief Henry Hertford was glad the archaeologist was finally gone. He pressed his fingers to his temples, and a tired groan escaped his throat. He remembered the stress that the Australian had brought with her when she arrived with her team of young American trouble-makers. “Archaeologists,” they called themselves. His quiet province got along fine without them. It had been almost ten years since Chief Hertford lit a cigarette. He suddenly felt like taking a long drag.

  In less than twenty-four hours, Aberdeen Central Police Station was being thronged by what seemed like every news outlet in the world. The station hadn’t been plagued by such controversy in years, even when it solved unusual murder cases. He shuffled some papers on his desk, pretending to be doing something important but really he was just avoiding the throng that awaited him outside the door. It took a long time before he noticed that the desk phone was ringing.

  “Yes,” he whispered into the receiver, losing his firm voice.

  As he listened a smile slowly crept over his face. When Chief Henry hung up the phone, he felt like a new man.

  A higher authority had just taken over Miss McAlister’s case. She was someone else’s problem now.

  The Buccaneer Ruin

  11:00 am

  The yellow tape was still around the site when they arrived, but the place was deserted. The press would be pursuing their story elsewhere, and the police would be doing damage control thanks to Skye.

  “The tape is still up, Professor,” Mert muttered as they walked towards it. “Um, it says POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.”

  Professor McAlister took the tape in her hands and tore it in two, letting it fall to the ground. “I don’t see any tape. Do you see any tape Lindsay?”

  “Hmm,” the girl responded as she stepped across the line, “I don’t recall seeing any…” As the rest of them crossed the threshold, all the problems they’d been dealing with suddenly seemed a million miles away. It was time to go to work.

  But as they set about it, Skye noticed a black SUV parked in a field a few hundred yards away. She could make out a familiar face behind the wheel watching them, and suddenly her heart sank. The thought of sitting in Chief Hertford’s office reviewing a video recording of her tearing police tape did not appeal to her.

  Why would they not leave her alone? Skye began to think there was something else going on. As she thought about the strange man, she realize
d he was not with the police. He couldn’t be. She never saw him talking with the police. He had always been standing apart somewhere by himself. He was always just…watching.

  Her analytical mind went to work. What would be so interesting about an archaeological dig to a strange man in a black suit sitting in a black car? None of the possible answers to that question sounded promising to Skye. She needed more data to reach a conclusion, but right now there was work to do. She put the question on that shelf in her mind she reserved for important problems to solve later, and returned her attention to the dig. Her focus was what made her brilliant; it was how she got the important things done.

  For the next hour, Andrew and Sebastian began to examine new sections of the survey while Mert and Lindsay concentrated on the pit where they had found the Marnoch Stone. Within the hour, they cited three new areas that they could dig and the twins were especially optimistic that they would be finding another piece of the stone.

  Much of the Marnoch Stone was still hidden in the earth. Skye had examined the stone closely enough before it was taken to know it was over one thousand years old. History placed the Picts in Scotland between the Iron Age and the early medieval period. If she could find another piece of the stone, hopefully a much larger piece, she could determine if it is indeed a translation stone. And if it is, she could begin bringing a lost language back from the dead.

  The origin and nature of the Picts is shrouded in mystery. The only written records on their history didn’t come from the people themselves, but from the Romans. Romans mention the Picts even before their conquest of Britain. Their chronicle runs to the tenth century, when it is believed the Picts merged with the Gaels. No one knows exactly why this happened. Skye in her research only found vague references to a process of Gaelicization that took over the Pictish culture. The Pict identity just disappeared and the society evolved as Gaelicized Scots.

  “There have been only significant myths and legends related to the Picts in history.” Skye heard Mert discussing with Lindsay as they worked.